2

Handed a shovel—
Apathy up to the eyes—
Never starts digging.

1

A night like tonight,
I breathe and taste the sweet air,
Remembering friends.

The Bamboo-Man

I saw a man on the T who carried
A long stick of bamboo scribbled over
With black permanent marker.
He wore at least a dozen necklaces,
All clanking with battered metal trinkets.

When he sat across from me, a musty air
Wafted from his worn out coat.

The bamboo-man produced
A wrinkled tissue and offered it
To a woman when she coughed.
He picked up a toy that a child
Dropped, handing it back with smile.

The woman shook her head.
The child smiled back.
I could have closed my eyes and died.

01/05

The Last Summer

Glass shore—disquiet,
Leaving never shards
That dig far into places unseen
And sing.

Glass water—still, shining,
Impossible to drink,
But it drinks your advent looks
And learns thirst.

Glass sand—heat swells,
Stolen from flesh,
Looking cool and inviting
Beneath

Glass skies—shimmer sultry,
Closing over your every breath.
With little left, you inhale
Glass.

The Toad Princess

Meat-black road,
Meet toad face.
Splish—splat—croak!
Kid choke-laughs.

Flicks “a gob
Of knob-meat,”
It smells wet—
It gets worse.

Lost in folds
Of clothes for
Weeks, it grows—
A toad egg

Hatches slime
In time for
Laundry. Mom
Spouts vomit

On it—not
A gut left—
Not done yet…
It sets off

Down Puke Stream—
It gleams green.
She dry heaves,
“Why me?” They
Both miss their mommies.

Duck-Billed Platitudes

Duck-billed platitudes
Gabble along
A straight slaughter-line.
Beside a wit-brick wall,
Crumbling
As it runs-on.

Day breaks it and
Night falls
In brick-sized clumps—
Poor platitudes
Never saw it coming.

Old-beaked patience
Picks it all
Not quite
Clean as a whistle.
Leaves blood, bones, and brick—
A feather or two.

I take it all,
Write red on red
Nothing to see/hear.

Dusting bones
Without a care,
The way things were
Was fair as fair.

I outwit patience—
Flying free,
Daughter’s daughter
Outsits me.

Hands open or closed,
Eyes open or closed—
One grave sounds like the next.

Four For More

Four more holes: a fork in the nose.
For more holes to hoe, the forking man knows.
Four more bumps: a jab to the c*nt,
For more textured humps, to make a thing blunt.